Don't Get Distracted by Trump's Latest Homophobic Executive Order

To mark the National Day of Prayer on Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order creating a “faith initiative” that will work within the federal government to protect and strengthen “religious liberty.” In Trump’s words at the signing ceremony, the order will “help ensure that faith-based organizations have equal access to government funding and equal right to exercise their deeply held beliefs.”

If that all sounds eerily familiar, it’s because the wording of Trump’s order closely tracks that of Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (or RFRAS) — an insidious brand of legislation that made headwinds in several states a few years back, chipping away at queer rights nationwide under the guise of protecting “religious liberty.” Notably, Vice President Mike Pence was embroiled in a firestorm during his tenure as governor of Indiana over the state’s RFRA. Pence eventually signed a revised (and gutted) RFRA, but the damage was done.

Pence’s RFRA scandal underscores an important point that state-level organizers have been trying to make since Trump took office: the Trump administration’s federal bigotry first took root at the state and local level, and those ongoing battles have often been overlooked in favor of the Trump administration’s more provocative moves, like Thursday’s executive order. In Oklahoma, for example, organizers are pushing back against Governor Mary Fallin for approving legislation that would allow faith-based adoption agencies to turn away LGBTQ+ families seeking to adopt.

“This coordinated effort to weaponize notions of faith in the service of discrimination is happening all over, and we only seem to be able to put it in our consciousness when it comes directly from Trump,” Chase Strangio, a staff attorney at the ACLU, tells them. “The executive branch is only one place where it’s happening, and if we allow for it in the states, it will make it that much harder for us to fight back.”

Strangio points to North Carolina as a state that set the template for the racist, anti-LGBTQ+ agenda the federal government has leaned into. “Efforts to suppress votes, redistricting, mass incarceration, efforts to ban trans people from restrooms — you can track the playbook at the federal level to the state level,” Strangio says. He also points out that, as seen with Pence, state legislators often become federal legislators down the road. “Overburdened state and local activists aren’t being given what they need” to combat hatred in their backyards, he says — while federal-level issues receive a comparative abundance of our attention and time.

Allie Shinn, director of external affairs for the ACLU of Oklahoma, agrees with Strangio. Her organization is fighting tooth and nail to prevent Oklahoma’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation from coming to pass. “It’s a perversion of the First Amendment where people are claiming they have a right to weaponize their religion,” Shinn tells them., speaking on both Trump’s executive action and on the state government in Oklahoma. “That’s not what religious freedom guarantees.”

While it’s true that Trump thus far has proven to be incredibly incompetent at achieving his administration’s larger legislative goals — his much-touted (and consistently unsuccessful) transgender military ban is just one example — he has a proven ability to ignite his base. His constant campaign-style rallies and rhetoric (like the rally he held near Detroit during last week’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner) will have exponential ramifications come midterm elections later this year. To fight him effectively, activists and advocates need to pay more attention and allocate more resources to state- and local-level battles. Shinn points out that while Congress is gridlocked, more attention should be paid at those levels — and that federal legislative nightmares can often be avoided by stamping them out at the state level.

Advertisement

“Oklahoma has long been a test ground for legislative extremism. Take Sharia law,” Shinn says, in reference to a failed attempt by the Oklahoma government to ban the traditional Islamic codes in 2010. “‘We have to ban it, Muslims are taking over’ — it was tested in Oklahoma and we stopped that. The ACLU of Oklahoma wiped it off the books.” She mentions again the attempt to prevent LGBTQ people in Oklahoma from being able to adopt at certain agencies. “This can be the same way.”

John Paul Brammer is a New York-based writer and advice columnist from Oklahoma whose work has appeared in The Guardian, Slate, NBC, BuzzFeed and more. He is currently in the process of writing his first novel.

them, a next-generation community platform, chronicles and celebrates the stories, people and voices that are emerging and inspiring all of us, ranging in topics from pop culture and style to politics and news, all through the lens of today’s LGBTQ community.